Sapphire and the Blue Rose
by Rayne Ulfa
Summary: What is Lyanna Stark had a direwolf? This story is based on that idea and there will be about 2 chapters.
1. Chapter 1

The girl was in her late teens. She wore armour that was too large and unfitted. Her long wild hair was swishing as she rode on her horse.

In hiding, the prince, Rhaegar Targaryen, watched her riding passed him, as he sat among the brambles, thorns and ferns. He hoped that she never saw him. He stood up, and felt ready to follow her discreetly if he could, as far as he might. She went inside the deepest thick wooded green, that was dark as the interior of a green dragon egg.

Then something snapped, the sound of twigs, and deep breathing. He was being followed as he was following the maiden on horseback. He spun round, and saw no one, until, a pair of glittering blue eyes stared back at him from within the tall grass low on the ground level.

"Who goes there?" Rhaegar asked.

The only reply was a low rumbling snarl.

He quickly felt the hilt of his sword in his belt, ready to unsheath it, and kill this ferocious animal. Stepping through the grass was a very large wolf. It had dark grey fur but its eyes were the most vivid looking blue eyes he'd ever seen on human and animal

"Sapphire!" cried a woman's voice, calling from within the trees. The blue-eyed wolf ignored Rhaegar, and ran straight into the woods, right in the direction where the northern maiden was last seen.

Rhaegar drew his sword and ran ahead, hurrying as fast as ever could. He must get to her before that wolf does. He burst through the shrubs and ferns, almost stumbling into the open.

The woman gave a little cry. "Your highness!"

Rhaegar found the wolf just sat on the ground, nuzzle resting between its paws. It looked more like a pet dog than a ferocious wolf.

"I'm sorry!" he panted, then his eyes caught the fact the maiden was almost naked, and she covered herself with this large shield. Embedded on the shield was the sigil of a white weirwood tree, complete with a red face, and it was smiling as if amused. Rhaegar didn't know what house that sigil belonged to but he recognised this cusiosity as being like the one at the jousting game. The one used by a strange knight.

"Excuse me, lady" he said, averting his gaze.

Rhaegar turned his back, while the northern maiden got dressed. She put on her beautiful white and smoky grey silk gown with long sleeves. An embroided shape of a white wolf at the right shoulder of her dress. Once she put on her dress and was lacing the front, she told the prince to look.

"I'm so sorry, I found the wolf chasing after you..." he went, but she cut him off.

"Sapphire is my direwolf," the young woman said, giggling. "She's a loyal friend".

Rhaegar was astonished that a lady should keep a direwolf, a wild animal and a known dangerous species too. It was no coincidence that there was a direwolf on her upper sleeve.

"What is your name, lady with the direwolf?" he asked.

She curtsied and politely said:

"My name is Lyanna Stark and I come from Winterfell".

The prince was pleasantly surprised to meet her.

Lyanna pulled off a pair of big boots, obviously not suited for a woman. She switched them for a suitable pair of feminine white fur-trimmed boots. She used a comb to brush her long dark hair, which appeared to glitter in the sunlight filtering through the thick woods.

"Where did you come by that shield?" he asked.

"Oh", Lyanna went quiet for a while, and Rhaegar knew she was hiding something.

"You can trust me," he told her. "I don't gossip".

Lyanna started to tremble, not so cheerful and confident now as she was earlie when undressed. She looked at the ground, avoiding his stare as he probed her with a difficult qustion. It was a secret. No one could know or it would be the death of her and her family. It might go as far as to break up her family. Or worse. All she would say was little.

"I must bury the shield" Lyanna said, "No one must ever find it."

"Dear lady, I don't mean to accuse you of anything," Rhaegar said. "Does it belong to you?"

Her eyes met his. "No!" she snapped.

Sapphire snarled and bared her teeth, staring at Rhaegar with those blue eyes. The prince was unnerved. That wolf's eyes, could they be? They looked like the eyes of the Others, as shown in the cave paintings beneath Dragonstone. Yet somehow, he doubted very much that Sapphire was a wight! The shewolf looked completely alive and not undead.

Still, he was sensing a coldness now.

"I must go back to the Red Keep," he announced calmly. "I will never tell anyone what I've witnessed here, and I shall not mention that shield".

Lyanna watched him as the prince turned and left, but she called out "Thank you!"

Rhaegar did not see Lyanna again until the next tourney's jousting match, but she was sat among the crowd, with her family below the familiar Stark banner that showed a direwolf. He could see the Starks with all of their eyes on him. He wondered if she'd told them all about her meeting him in the woods.

He won the tourney overall, and was champion for that massive event. He was given a crown of pale roses, blue with the stain of Winter, and he now had to choose the Queen of Love and Beauty.

He looked at his wife, Elia Martell. She sat high up on the royal dais, beside her flowery Ladies in Waiting. Elia wore the fine red silks, draped in gold and her hair plaited in gold bands. She was talking and laughing heartly with the ladies, and none looked at Rhaegar, much to his dismay. He kept his emotions buried.

He saw Lyanna standing as she clapped, her grey eyes sparkled like ice, and her hair covered in tiny pearls and forget-me-knots. The dress she wore was velvet and silver-grey, and it outlined her curves. She was easier to reach, and she had been watching him play. Elia had not watched him, and she expected him to win anyway so she never cheered him on either.

Elia anticipated the crown of roses, but she was busy chatting to her friends, and besides, pregnant, frail and already loved by the Seven Kingdoms. She couldn't possibly care if he would just hand these roses to another woman. Afterall, it's just flowers.

But when he gave the blue roses to Lyanna Stark, the entire crowd went silent. The crown was more than just flowers. It meant everything to the whole of Westeros.

What followed was war.

(to be continued)


	2. Chapter 2

Panting were the sounds of the direwolf made as he ran through the forest.

"Where are you going, boy?" he wondered. Ned Stark thought this but he couldn't say it. He was seeing through the eyes of Shadow, the name of his direwolf.

The dream vision went on, just him running and searching. In that dream, Ned had become Shadow. And the steel glare of the sunlight reflected on Ice, the Valyrian sword, woke him.

He wanted water. It was so hot.

"Are you well, Stark?"

"Huh?" Ned saw the blue gaze looking at him, with the smell of ale on his breathe. It was Robert.

"I was dreaming," Ned told him. "Another one of those dreams again, I was Shadow."

Robert laughed.

"You're so cold that you dream of wolves but I dream of women!" Robert laughed.

The war had been over and the mad king was dead. Lyanna was still missing. Prince Rhaegar was dead. Now Ned's direwolf, Shadow was missing too, last seen in the Riverlands, or thereabouts. running after something. He was gone for days and never returned.

Shadow was a large black direwolf, brother of the pack of direwolves they'd had since they were children. Their father found the four pups wandering around just outside Winterfell, considered to be a sign from the old gods.

Each of the Stark children owned one. Ned Stark had the clear grey eyed dark pup, named Shadow because he trotted around alongside Ned all the time. It was so odd now that Shadow just simply left. The others included the grey yellow-eyed pup called Rage, who was given to Brandon, Ned's oldest brother. This direwolf grew to become the biggest and ferocious of the pack. Rage died there in the Red Keep with Brandon.

Benjen was given the palest direwolf pup, it was white with very pale blue eyes. He was called Fangs.

The only female among the direwolf pups was coloured grey with eyes that sparkled like blue gemstones. This was Lyanna's direwolf, called Sapphire. When Lyanna disappeared, Sapphire also vanished. Lyanna's favourite colour was blue and she loved blue roses that grew in the Winterfell garden. Ever since Rhaegar crowned her the Queen of Love and Beauty, she wouldn't stop wearing the blue roses in her hair.

Ned had another dream, that he was Shadow and running, but he was now searching for Lyanna and met Sapphire. Ned didn't know. But he said "Find Lyanna! Go and find her!"

The road was rocky and almost red in colour. It wasn't the King's Road. He could no longer recognise the forest. How far did Shadow run? This direwolf travelled as he woke, and as he slept, he became Shadow and entered his direwolf, who searched on and on. Then the hills took form as the sun was rising. These hills looked red, and there was a tall, slender tower. He looked at it, through the eyes of Shadow, and he saw this tower, and sensed that Sapphire was near but then a sword appeared to close upon him.

The sudden caws of ravens woke him in a start.

"Ned! Are you feeling alright?" Robert asked.

It was based on that dream, or Shadow eyes, that Ned knew where to look. That place was South from here, and what other landscape has red hills but Dorne. But as for Shadow, he knew something was wrong. Shadow was dead. He sensed it as much.

He discovered the tower in Dorne, with three members of the Kings Guard outside. The sight of Shadow laying there in the dust was making him filled with sadness. The Kings Guard saw him and his group. It was time for a battle.

Ned found hi sister. Inside the tower, was Sapphire, and up a winding stair was a chamber where he found Lyanna, covered in blood. She still wore the roses in her hair but they had turned black and brittle.

Lyanna had just given birth to a baby boy.

"Promise me Ned" she told him, as she was dying.

Sapphire stayed with Lyanna, until they all returned to Winterfell. Ned took Lyanna's newborn son home to meet his wife Catelyn. Sapphire remained there for a year and left the castle beneath stars and a full moon.

Many years had passed when Ned Stark and his sons found the direwolf pups with their dead mother. His sons were with him as was his nephew, Lyanna's son called Jon. The direwolf mother had been killed by a large stag and there was a broken antler in her body. Ned was so sure that the mother looked like Sapphire, the direwolf of his dead sister. Could it be her? He wasn't sure. If it was, then she lived until a grand old age. These direwolves had to be a gift from the old gods, he thought.


End file.
